.

Not knowing is the greatest motivation in life.

Well, shit.

Kakashi held the mission scroll in a lazy grip. He was smiling, I thought, based on the lines imprinted into his mask, and completely casual as he told us, "We'll leave for the Land of Wind tomorrow afternoon. Pack to be gone for a week and a half. It'll take us three days to get there, but a bit over a week to walk back with the client."

I looked to Sasuke and Naruto—they weren't smiling, and neither was I.

A C-rank mission. Escort a nobleman from the Land of Wind to Konoha for the third part of the exam. It was a normal C-rank mission. Easy. Simple. I was stuck going in blind since it didn't happen in canon, given that most of Team 7 was busy preparing for the exam and couldn't take a mission, but that wasn't a huge problem.

It shouldn't be a problem. Most of the missions I took in my ninja career would be blind like this. It was something I needed to get used to. There was a voice in the back of my head screaming about Wave and the million and one ways things went wrong during that escort mission, but I gagged that annoyance and locked it away where it couldn't keep distracting me. This mission didn't have canon rubbing its grubby little hands all over it to turn it into a convoluted mess; it was a run of the mill C-rank.

This wouldn't be another Wave. I had to believe that.

I focused more on the worry I felt over being out of the village. The mission would bring us back to Konoha the day before the third part of the exam started, if we took to the full week and a half. That was days after Gaara would—in theory—attack Neji. With this mission, I had no chance to intervene.

There was nothing I could do about it other than hope that Gai would happen to be around, or that some other form of intervention would scare Gaara off. The situation was in fate's hands, not mine.

I was surprised by how bitter that thought felt as it churned through my head.

.

.

Even later that evening, hours after we'd been dismissed from training and I'd gotten home, started on my packing, my mind was stuck in the same rut.

I sat on my bed. Around me, my room was a complete mess from the process of packing, with my closet ripped apart and equipment scattered over my floor. My bag sat open in the middle of it all, a couple of scrolls visible inside of it. One held my bedroll, the other my spare clothes. I tossed the kunai pouch I was holding into the main compartment. Basic things, at least, could go into the scrolls, but anything sharp was better stored as is, done to avoid any chance of reaching into the seal and pulling your hand out a couple fingers short.

Maen was called out for a mission earlier this morning, leaving me alone. He never came back and I'd assumed he wasn't going to be before I left the next day.

It was just me and my thoughts.

In some ways, the situations with the mission and Neji made it feel like I was playing chess with a three-year-old. I was doing everything I could to keep tabs on Kabuto, watch for any sign of Orochimaru, monitor Gaara and the rest of the entourage from Suna, and take guesses as to how the invasion might play out. I knew I was missing some things, as it was impossible for me to stay on top of every thread that made up the spiderweb of the exams, but I was at least tryingto play by the rules this time around. And the universe? In response, it decided to toss the rulebook in a fire and make things up as it went, and I had no choice but to keep going, stuck in a game that I was starting to think I might not be able to win.

I fell back onto my bed and stared up at the ceiling, starfished on top of my covers. My fingers tried to curl inwards. I didn't let them. Instead, I pulled the pillow from behind my head and hugged it to my chest, my face buried beneath the top edge of it.

Then, of course, the mission.

The stupid, irrational coward inside of me was still locked away in the furthest recesses of my mind, drumming up every possible thing that could go wrong while we were gone.

Suna could come after us for taking their business. The escortee could turn out to be a Tazuna-copy and have some secret that meant ninja were after him. Gaara could make a move on Neji and kill him. Akatsuki could take an easy shot at Naruto while he's out of the village rather than wait for the invasion. Hell, the invasion could trigger early.

Letting my mind wander and spiral like this was an exercise in futility. None of these wild jumps were preventable. I was winding myself up and I knew that, which was why I was doing my best to abandon it for something more constructive, but I couldn't shut it off.

I sighed.

My packing wasn't finished, not even close, but I found I no longer had the energy to keep going.

I turned onto my side and curled up with the pillow, my hair fanned out around me, a sea of auburn against the stark white of my covers and pillow. I would do it tomorrow. For now, I wanted to mope and get it out of my system.

I got to the front gates at noon.

I'd thrown my pack together at the last minute and put on the first clothes my hands grabbed, a plain grey t-shirt and dark green shorts, mesh underneath it all. I had my bracelets with me, but that was more habit than anything else. Kakashi forbade me from using them outside of practice, which was fair, much as I didn't want to admit it. My accuracy was getting better, but it wasn't good. Not yet.

Sasuke was already there, Bisuke at his side. I got a grunt and a nod from Sasuke as greeting, and Bisuke trotted over to me when he saw me, tail wagging. I squatted down to give him a few pats.

"Hey, buddy," I said, one hand on top of his head and the other under his muzzle. "How're you doing?"

"I'm good, I'm good," Bisuke said.

He didn't talk to either of the boys, but since Kakashi had started to use the pack in my tracking training, both Bisuke and Urushi were beginning to talk to me, along with the rest of the pack. They were quiet about it. Even now, his answer was soft, only for my ears. They must've gotten a kick out of messing with the boys. Naruto was the only one who tried in earnest to get them to talk, but I knew Sasuke wanted to hear it too from how he always paid attention when Naruto really got into it, even if Sasuke tried to be discreet about his interest.

"Did they feed you?"

Bisuke snuffled. He made himself look pathetic, tail between his legs and ears pointed down, head lowering down.

My eyes rolled—I knew what that meant.

I slid my bag off my shoulder and dropped it down to the ground. It took a second of digging, but I produced a scroll with a mass of ration bars in it, more than I needed for the mission just in case, and pulled one out. I crushed it into bits for Bisuke on the ground.

From his spot leaning against the village walls, Sasuke frowned. "I fed him this morning."

"Yeah, I figured," I said. Of the boys, Sasuke was the one who consistently fed his ninken when Kakashi dumped one with him. Naruto gave Urushi ramen, sometimes. He tried. Sasuke just happened to do a better job, even if he did it grudgingly. "But the way to a dog's heart is through its stomach."

I stood up, dusting off my knees as I did. The gates were busy with the traffic brought on by the exams. Foreign nobles and merchants were coming in by the dozen, more and more with the approaching third part of the exam. The line of people coming in far outstretched the line of people going out, and most of those leaving were ninja—only one of the ten people waiting to leave wasn't wearing a headband.

Around us, the opening stretch of the village was alive with food stands and trinkets stalls, all overpriced, targeted at the incoming tourists. The money put into paying for extra security and amenities for the foreign ninja was made back and then some with the economic boost that tourists gave the village during this part of the exams.

I was tempted to grab something from one of the stalls, but I held off. My stomach had been doing somersaults all morning and I wasn't sure it'd take the food well. I avoided breakfast, hoping it'd calm down by this point. It wasn't showing any signs of easing, though.

I'd eat on the road. Probably.

I meandered over to where Sasuke was and sat myself down against the wall, comfortable while we waited for the rest of the team. Naruto, Urushi in tow, arrived not long after. Kakashi took a bit longer but by one in the afternoon, we were on our way out of the village.

.

.

We covered a fair amount of ground for the day. By the time dusk ripped across the sky, with red-tinged clouds imprinted on a purple canvas and the sun a smudge on the horizon, we were a third of the way to the client's meeting place, his property on the outskirts of Wind.

Kakashi had us set camp. Naruto was sent out to gather wood for the fire, Sasuke and I sent to hunt our dinner.

The foresting around us was thinner than the lush overgrowth of Konoha, but it was thick enough that I knew we hadn't yet crossed into the Land of River. We were nestled in a cluster of oak trees, their massive trunks providing us with solid cover on all sides.

I looked to Sasuke. I opened my mouth to offer a plan of action, but Sasuke beat me to it.

"You track it," he said. "I'll follow and finish it off."

I frowned. "It'll be faster if we each get our own rabbit. We need three or four, anyways, so we might as well just go off on our own."

"No."

"Why not? You're perfectly capable of tracking a rabbit—"

He turned and walked away into the depths of the forest, hands shoved in his pockets.

I rolled my eyes. Great. I went after his retreating figure and kept my eyes peeled for any signs of a mark. When I caught up, Sasuke slowed to a stop, watching me with a hard to decipher expression. I ignored him and focused on the task at hand.

It didn't take me long to get going on something.

Twigs crunched underfoot as I worked my way through the trees, following what bits of a trail I could pick up from a nearby rabbit. Mostly it was the scent, made more vibrant with chakra augmentation, but there was a smattering of footprints through the soil, obscured by fallen foliage, that I was able to use as well.

The loamy smell of the forest was overwhelming, rich and heavy. But among it, I managed to pick out the sourness of rabbit droppings, and that was what I followed. Sasuke kept a pace or two behind me with a kunai at the ready.

Five minutes in was when I found the first one. I crouched, approached slow, careful not to spook it, and spotted a brown ball of fur camouflaged in the dirt and ruffage. I didn't have to say anything. From behind me, Sasuke nailed it in the side with the kunai, an incapacitating shot, and then went over and finished the job.

I turned an eye to the sky—it was going to be dark soon.

"We really should split up," I said. "We've only got half an hour before it's dark. Maybe sooner."

Sasuke was knelt in front of the rabbit, using some dirt to clear the blood from his kunai. He didn't even look up at me when he said, "No."

"You can track a rabbit just as well as I can, and it's not like we're going to get attacked in the middle of a fucking forest."

Sasuke didn't answer.

I couldn't help the annoyed noise that left my mouth. "Come on," I said. "At least give me one good reason—"

Sasuke stood up, his movements stiff and abrupt. The rabbit was held loose at his side and when he turned to face me, he had a glare set in place, his mouth a tight line. "Whatever," he spat. "Have it your way."

He stalked off.

In his signature, I could sense anger I expected to feel, but mixed in there was something I'd only really seen from him during Wave: fear. It was unfamiliar in Sasuke's signature, but unmistakable.

I felt like an idiot.

I closed my eyes, all of the frustration draining out of me. "Wait."

He stopped.

"You're right," I said. "Kakashi sent us out together, so… yeah. Sorry. Shouldn't have tried to fight you on it."

I saw the expression on his face smooth out into a neutral expression and the tension ease from his posture. He took a second to appraise me, his gaze sharp but, surprisingly, curious rather than angry. Once that thought hit my mind, I saw his expression in a new light—while mostly neutral, he seemed almost baffled.

It was an odd thing to stand there and wonder if it was the first time I'd ever apologized to him.

It was a thought process going through my mind more and more lately.

And then, he nodded at me.

I jogged over to him and got to work on finding a different trail. We probably wouldn't manage to get them all before dark, but I supposed that would have to be fine.

.

.

The nightmares came in the dark.

A bloody hospital room coated in a layer of sand. Snakes hissing, wreaking havoc on the village and curling themselves around me, suffocating me, biting me. The stench of death and decay stuck in the air, carried on the smoke of fires that burned anywhere my gaze turned, one house after another turned to ash.

It was a cycle. Fall asleep, have a nightmare, jolt awake. After the third time, I decided to lay awake and watch the stars. The sleep wasn't worth it anymore.

.

.

We set out relatively early in the morning, only having set camp for a short part of the night—a couple of hours to eat and relax, then six hours of sleep, with each of us taking shifts of an hour and a half to guard. The sun was up when we left, but only just. The sky would still be dark if it wasn't the middle of the summer.

Our formation was simple as we flew through the trees. A diamond formation, with Kakashi in the rear, Sasuke right point, Naruto left point, and I was at the front. Unlike Wave, I wasn't allowed to scout ahead. Something about not enough enemy potential to warrant a loose formation.

That made sense for while we were in Fire Country, but not once we crossed into the Land of River in the middle of the day. But Kakashi didn't make any move to change it and I wasn't willing to argue. It wasn't worth adding to the already clear tension.

Kakashi was playing his usual role of 'silent until an opportunity for a one liner presents itself' while Naruto and Sasuke slowly drove each other insane.

Naruto, in his nervousness, was louder and more obnoxious than usual. He was instigating, no two ways about it. He knew which buttons on Sasuke to push to achieve the most result and though he had gotten better over the last few weeks at resisting the urge, he was going wild now.

Sasuke, in his nervousness, was quieter and more irritable than usual. He wanted to be left in silence. And when he wasn't allowed to be, he reacted, harsh and fast—frankly, too harsh and too fast.

The whole thing was a recipe for disaster, and it felt like a minor miracle that neither of them had throttled the other by the time we broke for lunch.

It continued through lunch.

I expected Kakashi to let it slide like he always did. And for the most part, I was right. He didn't chastise either of them or try and talk to them about it, but he took a more subtle approach.

He sent them on different jobs for minimal interaction and sat right between the two of them while we ate, like a human meat shield. And when we broke after our meal, Kakashi shifted the formation so that I was on point with him while Naruto and Sasuke were at rear and front respectively. Even his jibes, while overall immature and unhelpful, were distributed evenly, and did diffuse a few of the more heated exchanges between the boys.

I wanted him to do more, but I would take what I could get, especially since I wasn't sure there was anything that would make them stop.

I was surprised by how tame Kakashi kept our pace through to the Land of Wind. By the third day, we were at the southwestern border between River and Wind, but we chose to set up camp and get the rest of the way the next day instead of pushing on through the night.

It was easier to make camp in the forested parts of River now than to make it in the desert later.

Kakashi had Naruto gather firewood, me hunt, and Sasuke set up a perimeter around the camp, the latter necessary now that we were out of Fire. He pointed me in a vaguely western direction of the camp—he said there was a river where the animals would be convening. Who would imagine, a river in the Land of Rivers?

I gave a half-hearted attempt at going that way, following the river for a few minutes without any signs of life, before I decided to wander off in whichever direction I found a trail.

Small mammals were the ideal. They were abundant and easy to haul around. However, I caught the scent of a bear, and while I knew we wouldn't be able to make use of all the meat, we would use enough. It was the chance to kill one mark over a handful.

The bear wasn't too hard to find once I got onto the trail. The scent was pungent and the tracks were strong, not to mention that a bear was big enough to emit a chakra signature. It wasn't much, but when I really pushed at my chakra sense, both for detail and distance, I was able to get a read on it once I was close.

But it wasn't the only thing I got a read on, not by a long shot.

I'd looped around the camp after following Kakashi's initial western lead. The track took me a twenty-minute walk east of the camp, instead. I wasn't far. I had my old weights on still, and with them empty I figured a bit of a chakra boost was all I'd need to get the thing back to camp.

Except, once I got close to the bear, there was something I sensed that made me go past it, something that I wanted to be sure I was sensing. I wondered if it was a hallucination from a lack of sleep that came with missions, or not eating enough, but it wasn't.

There was a cluster of ninja huddled right at the edge of my sense. It was panic inducing until I realized that right in the middle of those signatures were two very familiar ones, bright and distinct once I got closer, one far more so than the other. I could sense Maen and Jiraiya. There wasn't a shadow of a doubt in my mind that they were there, and they were real.

I stood frozen, one hand pressed against the rough trunk of a tree, bark biting into the palm of my hand from how hard I gripped it, for a solid five minutes. They didn't move. It seemed they were camped, too.

My mind stuttered to a stop. For the whole mission, it'd spiraled, spun into wild conclusions and worst-case scenarios. This development brought it to a screeching halt.

Autopilot kicked in and I pushed myself away from the tree. I went back over to where I tracked the bear to. Its den was in a hollow tree and, knowing that there was nobody around to take notice, I pulled a low-grade explosive tag from my pack and tossed it into the cave. The bear would have a quick death and I wouldn't have to worry about getting my hands messy.

I dragged the carcass back to camp, smoke still curling off its fur.

"Whoa!" Naruto cried when he saw it. "A bear? That's so cool!"

He had a small fire going strong in the middle of camp. Kakashi was lounged out on top of his bedroll, orange book open in front of him, one hand lazily reached out to catch the heat of the fire.

"Yeah, yeah," I said. For his sake, I forced a grin. "Why don't you go get some more wood? We might need a bigger fire for this."

Naruto whined from his spot by the fire. "Awh… come on. I'm so comfy!"

"Go. It'll take a bit to cut this thing up, so you gotta wait either way."

He dragged himself up and shuffled off into the forest.

I dropped the body of the bear right beside Kakashi, who pulled himself up into a proper sitting position and set his book down beside him. "This hardly seems necessary," he said.

I pulled a kunai from my holster and got down to the task of carving out the meat. It was disgusting and uncomfortable, but not unfamiliar. One of the first tests of your mettle in the Academy was skinning your first rabbit on the class camping trips.

"Why are Maen, Jiraiya, and a squad of ninja stationed a two-and-a-half-hour walk east of the camp?"

"If you were a good student, you would have come back with a deer or something from the mouth of the river west from here."

"It sucked so I tracked something else," I said. "I'd like an answer to my question."

"I can't give you one."

I looked up, knife buried in the bear's flesh. His expression was flat. It could have been mistaken for boredom, on somebody else, but I read it as a neutral expression that verged on annoyed.

"Fucking fantastic."

"Forget that you saw anything," Kakashi said. "You're on a normal escort mission."

He watched me. I found I had nothing else to say to him.

Secrets were being kept from us, and that didn't sit well with me.

I jerked the kunai back, the blade slicing straight through the flesh like it was made of butter. Four chunks of meat were sectioned off. I cut them into smaller pieces and stuck them onto sticks that were sharpened and cleaned for this purpose. The rest of the meat went into one of the storing scrolls I'd packed that were able to hold organic material. There were a few of them in my pack, this time. Just in case.

They were useful. While not meant explicitly for this situation, it was better to store seal the rest of the bear meat and dump the scroll somewhere than leave the carcass out where it could attract wildlife.

The meat was placed by the fire to cook and I went to wash my hands off. Kakashi went back to reading his book.

I was tempted to mention something to the boys. Maybe not Naruto, but Sasuke, at least, because I didn't think he'd do anything stupid if I told him about it. I chose not to. As infuriating as it was that they weren't telling us everything, I had to hope there was a reason for it, and that it was better to respect that.

Still, that didn't make it any easier for me to fall asleep that night as fears for tomorrow plagued my mind.